I don’t see them as being any more out of reach than if they were located in the building next door. There is a building across from mine has a gorgeous rooftop terrace. I suffer absolutely no angst over not being able to use this terrace even though I see it every time I look out the window or step out onto my tiny little terrace.
And I did a little more googling on that building. While 40 Riverside is all condos, some of the other buildings in the complex have luxury full-priced rentals. If you own a condo, the gym membership is included in your common charges. This is not necessarily a good thing from the owners POV. Many of them are paying for an amenity they will never use.
The building does this in order to guarantee that there will be enough revenue to keep the gym open. I have seen similar arrangements in luxury buildings that have a common dining room that serves dinner nightly ( usually Upper East Side buildings that cater to older people aka “Gods Waiting Room” ). The residents have to pay for a certain number of meals whether they use them or not.
But the gym membership is optional for full-pay rental tenants. It costs $500 a month. The average full price rental runs $77 per square foot. I see rental listings for 1 bedroom apartments in the 4K to 5K per month range and there is a large 3 bedroom 4 bath unit listed for $16,500.00 a month. This prices do not include the gym membership.
By contrast, it looks like the rent for a one bedroom in the affordable section is $895 a month. So I think that if any tenant feels there dignity is compromised because their wealthy neighbors won’t give them a $500 a month luxe gym membership, they are free to retain their dignity by renting a crappy one bedroom for around 3K a month. There are 87,999 other people who applied.
And this isn’t really about gentrification. The “gentrification” of the ”lower” Upper West Side happened in the 1960’s. Now it’s just a really nice neighborhood that also has lots of long time rent controlled apartments.
I’ve just came across a video about how Boston’s Chinatown is under threat of gentrification. Well if the Chinatown gentrifies, then it will no longer be a Chinatown. Instead it will become a neighborhood consisting almost exclusively of affluent white people. So there you see some of the negative consequences of gentrification.
I should at least tell you that there’s nothing wrong with having a Chinatown. Chinatowns are often well kept and they always thrive well. So if you want to know why gentrification is bad, then it’s because it can threaten well kept neighborhoods as well. All those affluent whites should instead live in those expensive suburban communities.
Combining this and other threads, it looks like if white people leave a neighborhood, it reduces taxes collected, lowers school performance, and upheaves communities, therefore it is a case of bad “white flight”. However, once they are gone, they are not allowed to come back because it increases taxes, home values, and school performance through the evil process of “gentrification”
You mean the Chinatown that used to be on the edge of the Combat Zone, Boston’s Red Light District? The current Chinatown is quite gentrified from the Chinatown I grew up near.
Um it’s the gentrified neighborhoods that are segregated. They are almost exclusively white, with little or no people of color. Just take a look at Brixton in London. All the blacks that lived there are just about gone and they have been largely replaced by whites.
The Smiths decide that they would like to move to Ethnictown, USA. They’ve found a beautiful old home at a great price. The owners are willing to sell.
Who should be enforcing your point of view? Should the federal government step in and kibosh the sale? Should the local government require racial background checks before allowing sales in historic neighborhoods?
What, exactly, is your solution? “Revitalization” is not a solution, because that’s not going to stop your Affluent White People from buying property in neighborhoods they see as desirable.
Poor people should be dropped into the machinery of industry so their blood can oil the gears.
…err, ahh… by which I mean I favour subsidized housing for urban dwellers, but not if it accelerates decay.
Um, that’s dodge, not an answer to the question. You want to keep Chinatown as Chinatown. Is it OK if less affluent white people move there as long as they don’t improve the housing? How much improvement, if any, can a white person do if she moves into Chinatown?
Don’t tell me about other places. Tell me about your plan for Chinatown. What is and is not allowed, according to you?
Have you ever been to Boston’s Chinatown? It used to be a pit. It’s much nicer now, and there is excellent Chinese culture moving out further from the city.
To get things straight, would “gentrification” as a term describe what’s happening to San Francisco and the Bay Area’s housing markets? What about Hawaii, where housing is being bought up by outside investors and buyers looking for AirB&B cash cows? My instinct tells me that these are different, but I want to be sure.
What do people think happens to all the former residents who can’t afford the gentrified area anymore and are forced to leave? It seems to me that, as a housing issue, it’s not doing any better than just shifting the problem around like three card monte. So I would hesitate to unflinchingly call it a universally “good thing.”
